


Good Enough

by Flynne



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24135091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flynne/pseuds/Flynne
Summary: After the fall of Thessia, Atticus Shepard is ready to break.
Relationships: Jack | Subject Zero/Male Shepard
Comments: 1
Kudos: 31





	Good Enough

Atticus didn’t sleep after they left Thessia. He stalked away from the vidcom after the asari councilor disconnected and went to comfort Liara; he kept his voice low and patient even though he wanted to scream, let her cry on his shoulder until she calmed enough to return to her terminal. He went to the armory with his shirt damp from her tears, cleaned and repaired his weapons and armor until the small nicks and cuts on his hands burned from soot and gun oil. 

He reviewed supply lines and munitions shortages. He scrolled through emails from all members of the council and ignored them all. He stared at casualty lists until his eyes burned. 

When the  _ Normandy _ docked, he lingered on board just long enough to make sure Traynor had everything under control, and then he grabbed his duffel and headed for his quarters in the Spectre barracks. 

But he didn’t stay.

Atticus stared at the narrow bed - musty from weeks of disuse - turned, and walked away. Armax Arsenal Arena on the Silversun Strip was open 24 hours. He’d never been before, but the scream that had been building in his chest since they’d left the Athena Nebula was threatening to tear him in half and the need to fight  _ something, anything _ made him feel as if ants were crawling and biting under his skin.

When he reached the Silversun Strip, he nearly turned around and left. It was crowded despite the late hour, and the multicolored neon made him wince and turn away. But he couldn’t stand the idea of going back to his dusty barracks - vaguely, he remembered that Anderson had an apartment nearby he’d been asked to check on, but he wasn’t sure where it was - so he straightened his shoulders and set his jaw, and even the half-drunk crowd parted to let him through when they saw the expression on his face.

The fake pistol the arena provided was too light but it still kicked convincingly against his palm when he fired. He chose solo combat and set the difficulty to expert and the opponents to random, and stepped into the elevator.

The spike of adrenaline that shot through him when he caught the first glimpse of gold and white armor caused him to throw a warp field so savage the screens on the other side of the arena glitched. And then he spat a blistering stream of profanity because of course,  _ of fucking course _ the inhabitants of the Citadel would want to fight Cerberus goons - but he threw himself into the combat anyway, holding off on using biotics at first, sticking to firearms - slowing down so he could place a single, savage bullet in each trooper’s faceplate.

Round 2 was Cerberus again, then inaccurately rendered Rachni that made him roll his eyes but moved faster than he expected, and he was hard-pressed to stay out of range. Then space pirates - and that time he let them close in, let them strike, snarling against the punishing barrage of simulated firepower before tearing their holographic bodies to shreds with his biotics. 

There was a brief pause while the arena reset, and when the VI announced the start of the next round, he nearly dropped his fake gun as the horrifying shriek of a banshee split the air. His breath caught in his throat and he stumbled back, staring in disbelief as Reaper forces materialized out of the red enemy spawning zones. 

“What the fuck?” The words slipped out before he realized he’d spoken - and then black rage bloomed in his chest, obliterating anything else. “What the  _ fuck _ , you assholes?” His scream echoed mockingly back at him. He had no way to know if the arena staff could hear him or not - and if he ever found out the name of the sick fuck who thought programming  _ Reaper forces _ into the simulation was a good idea, he’d tear them a new one - but his shock was subsiding, and husks were swarming towards him in a lurching run, and he bared his teeth in a furious snarl and unleashed a torrent of mass effect fields and gunfire.

The husks went flying in the wake of his shockwave, and by the time their broken bodies had landed, cannibals were bounding over the rubble toward him and a pair of marauders drifted to the edges of his vision as they tried to flank him. He ducked behind cover and fired, piercing a cannibal’s skull neatly with a single bullet as he stripped the shields from a marauder. Even though in the back of his mind he knew it was a simulation, his heart pounded and climbed into his throat as the banshee screeched again. He couldn’t see it yet but it sounded closer.

A burst of simulated gunfire slammed him against the concrete barrier behind him hard enough to knock the wind out of him as a cannibal he’d missed slipped around his left flank. He flung out his hand and caught it in a singularity. The nerves down his right arm prickled uncomfortably from the strain on his amp as he launched a warp field, but the suspended cannibal exploded in a blast of blue-white light.

A husk - a straggler he’d missed in the first shockwave - latched onto his arm with a guttural groan. He smashed his elbow into its face to knock it away and backhanded it with his pistol. The plastic cracked and he tossed the fake weapon away, seized the husk’s head with both hands, and snapped its neck.

All that left was the banshee - far too close now, slavering at him through skeletal jaws. Cold sweat broke out on his skin despite the knowledge it was a simulation. He cast a shockwave with both hands, bashing it back. It screamed loud enough to split his skull and he screamed back, snaring it with a singularity before tearing it in half with a warp field.

The banshee disintegrated with a wail. Atticus stumbled to an unsteady standstill, slumping forward to prop his hands on his knees. His breath burned in his lungs, sweat was dripping into his eyes, and he could feel the growing ache around his amp that warned of a coming migraine if he kept pushing.

The arena’s VI bobbed cheerfully in the air in front of him. “Would you like another round?”

“No,” he rasped.

“Have a pleasant day, and thank you for choosing Armax Arsenal Arena.”

Atticus returned to the empty locker room and squeezed into one of the tiny shower cubicles, standing motionless under the lukewarm spray until the timer dinged and the water cut off. He shivered even after he was dressed, the heat of anger and exertion washed away, leaving him cold and hollow.

His omni-tool chirped at him as a new message came in, and he glanced down to read it.

_ Time: 0256  _

_ Sender: Jack Nought _

_ Message: You could’ve told me you were back, you fucker. Come by if you’re still up. _

He went.

Jack’s apartment in the wards was a bit of a hike from Silversun Strip, but even the Citadel slowed down this late at night - and nights were even longer, since the standard day length on the massive station coincided with Thessia. Atticus leaned against the wall in the elevator as it whisked him away. When the doors opened to let him out, he barely managed to push himself forward and step out before the doors closed again.

Jack opened the door at his knock, wearing a loose tank top and a pair of his boxers he didn’t remember leaving behind. “Hey. You look like shit.”

Somehow he mustered up a lopsided smirk. “Thanks.”

She stepped aside so he could enter. “You got here faster than the delivery boy from the noodle shop. Not bad for someone who didn’t let me know they’d docked.”

“I didn’t know you were here.” His voice scraped out through his raw throat and he coughed a couple times until he could speak normally. “I thought you were still out in the Krogan DMZ with the kids.”

“We got back yesterday. They kicked ass. Finished their assignment early.” The smug look on her face faded as she looked him over. “Seriously, though, you look fucked over. You good?”

_ No. _

But what came out of his mouth was, “Didn’t think you called me over to talk.”

She regarded him for a moment with narrowed eyes - clearly not buying his bullshit  _ at all _ \- but he saw the shift in her expression when she decided not to push him and let him do whatever he needed to do to sort himself out. So she rolled her eyes but it didn’t hide the familiar playful, predatory gleam, and even through his exhaustion he felt his body ache to be touched, because if something didn’t hold him together soon he was going to fly apart. “You’re right,” she drawled. “I didn’t.”

His back slammed against the wall as she pounced on him, mouth warm and hungry against his. He ignored the flare of pain from sore muscles, pulling her flush against him to feel her strong body against his own - but even as he kissed her in return he felt something cold and shaken inside him recoil, his barely-buried anger and lingering bruises rising like a barrier between her touch and his skin, and the ache in his bones shifted from longing to simply  _ hurting _ . He caught hold of her arms and turned his head away. “No. Wait.”

Jack frowned and stepped back, but her expression was confused rather than angry. “What’s going on?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice brittle and cracking, “I can’t. Not right now. I’m sorry.”

She huffed and folded her arms loosely across her chest. “Don’t  _ apologize.  _ You really think I’m going to get pissed at you if you say no or want to stop?” 

“No, I…” Atticus swallowed, felt his bounding pulse start to slow. “No.”

“Good.” She gave him a hard look. “Feel like telling me what the hell happened on Thessia, now?” Seeing his startled expression, she rolled her eyes again. “I have security clearance, dumbass. I know you were there. What. The hell. Happened?”

The fury he’d felt on Thessia returned with a vengeance, but it didn’t stay. He was too shattered to hold it in, and it drained away as quickly as it had come. He sagged back against the wall. “They lied,” he ground out. “This whole time, they hid a beacon, and - they knew. About the beacon on Eden Prime, about Sovereign, they _had a beacon_ and - ” Distantly, he knew he was failing to string together a coherent explanation, but she didn’t interrupt. “It was a fucking _Prothean VI_ , Jack, and it’s _gone!_ ”

He didn’t realize he was shaking until Jack frowned at him again, arms falling to her side as she took a step forward. “When did you last sleep?”

It wasn’t the question he thought she’d ask, and it took him a minute to answer. “I don’t know.” 

Jack regarded him seriously before reaching out to wrap her hand around his wrist. “Come on. You can explain all that bullshit in the morning.” She led him through the darkened apartment, and he let her move him to sit on the edge of the bed with a palm to the center of his chest. She bent to pull off his boots, then tugged at the collar of his shirt. “Strip.”

He sluggishly shed his uniform while she climbed into bed and watched him from where she sat propped against the headboard. He crawled beneath the covers in his t-shirt and boxers and let Jack put her hand on the back of his neck to guide him down, angling his body on the bed so he could rest his head in her lap. 

She sighed. “Fucking Cerberus.” Atticus had heard her say those words dozens of times, but he’d never heard her say them with such quiet resignation. Her fingertips drifted from the back of his head to trace lightly over the glowing scars in his cheek. “Couldn’t put you back together right. You’re coming apart at the seams.” Her hand rested along the side of his face, cool and steady. “Have you even been taking your meds?”

He thought of the bottles of antirejection drugs and immune modulators Miranda and Dr. Chakwas had prescribed for him, meant to keep his body from turning against the overwhelming amount of cybernetics woven into him. The bottles that were still sitting in his cabin on the  _ Normandy _ , forgotten and untouched for at least 72 hours.

Jack scoffed at his silence and flicked the back of his ear. “Dumbass.” But the flick and her comment both were without sting. 

Something clenched deep within Atticus’ chest, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He’d been...something...with Jack for a while, but now he realized in a breathless moment that he loved her, and it filled him with despair - because this was something else he was going to lose, someone else the Reapers were going to take from him. The vice in his chest clamped so hard it made him gasp. He turned and buried his face in the quilt over Jack’s lap, threw his arm across her knees and held on to her like the drowning man he was.

“Hey.” Worry wasn’t something he was used to hearing from her, but she draped her arm across his back and held him in return. “Easy, Shep. It’ll be okay.” She waited until his breathing evened out before asking, “How long are you here?”

“Not sure.” His voice was still hoarse, but not shredded like it had been earlier. “We took a bad hit from a Harvester leaving Thessia.  _ Normandy _ ’s in dry dock for a while for repairs and overhaul.” 

“Probably for the best. You could do with an overhaul yourself.” It was testament to how concerned she was that the reply didn’t sound suggestive in the least. Jack pushed at him until he gave her room to lie down, and put her arms around him again when he draped his arm across her waist and moved to lay against her once she’d settled. “Sleep now while you can. I don’t care how late it is - first thing in the morning you’re going back to the ship to get your meds if I have to grab you by the balls and drag you there myself.” 

“Promises, promises,” he mumbled against her stomach.

Jack snorted but his sarcasm lacked its usual lightness, and she tapped him on the back of the head. “Hey. You gonna be all right?”

He was quiet for several minutes before he let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know,” he said tiredly. “But...this is better.”

She held him a little tighter. “That’s good enough for now, I guess.”


End file.
